There was a generation of this down-stream transportation, and it built
up the first splendid, aggressive population of the West--a population
which continued to edge farther outward and farther down-stream. The
settlement at Nashville, the settlements of Kentucky, were at touch
with the Ohio River, the broad highway that led easily down to the
yet broader highway of the Mississippi, that great, mysterious stream
so intimately connected with American history and American progress.
It was easy to get to New Orleans, but hard to get back over the
Alleghanies.